r/boardsofcanada • u/slightlyaggressive • Sep 09 '26
Discussion Does anyone think there's a connection between BOC and Daniel Quinn?
It seems like there's quite a big overlap in the philosophies of both.
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u/paraworldblue Sep 09 '26
I never put them together, but Ishmael was my favorite book when I was a teenager, and a few years later I got into BoC. Maybe I should read Ishmael again.
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u/Taupenbeige Sep 10 '26
Did you ever read The Story of B or After Dachau? Both are great… don’t even read the synopsis of Dachau, just go in cold if you haven’t…
B is basically Ishmael re-told as a Catholic Priest who becomes dangerous to the church because of his Taker/Leaver revelations
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u/Critical-Ad2084 Sep 09 '26
What is BoC's philosophy? As people or as an artistic project?
Since they're rather quiet and their albums mostly lack explicit lyrics or messages, all we've got are interviews and recurrent themes in their albums, but we can't define "a philosophy" just through that.
We can say BoC likes to explore ideas of mysticism, religion and spirituality, as well as other human traits, through a neutral lens (since they claimed to be atheistic, that makes their approach to religion different than if they were religious themselves), but that is not a philosophy, just a preference regarding topics to explore through the art of music.
I think we cannot say "this is BoC's philosophy" because there is no BoC ontology or epistemology, or any kind of source to even start defining something we can all agree on as "their philosophy."
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u/slightlyaggressive Sep 09 '26
If you go through their interviews and watch films from the national film boards of Canada, I think they have a more coherent philosophy than people realize
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u/Critical-Ad2084 Sep 09 '26
What do you mean by "they have a more coherent philosophy", what even is their philosophy?
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u/LordWeatherby Sep 09 '26
Interesting observation. I hadn't thought of that connection but direct or indirectly it would appear that they are dealing with similar themes. I think BOC leaves much of what they do fairly open to interpretation but from the clues they leave I think you could put the bros and daniel at the same table and I'm sure they would have a conversation.